Лорел Гамильтон - The Harlequin

Edward, with Ted's smiling face, said, «If you don't mind, Lieutenant, I'd feel better if you came out of the room.»

Dolph nodded, then put the safety on his gun and handed it butt first to Edward. Edward let his face show surprise. I didn't try to hide the shock I felt. No cop gives up his gun voluntarily, least of all Dolph. Edward took the gun. «You still not feelin' okay, Lieutenant Storr?»

«I'm okay at the moment, but if this vampire can get past my cross once, it can do it again. I almost shot him.» He jerked a thumb in Requiem's direction. «I want to talk to Marshal Blake alone.»

Edward gave him all the doubt on his face, and said, «I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Lieutenant.»

Dolph looked at me. «We need to talk.»

«Not alone,» Requiem said.

Dolph didn't even look at him, but kept those dark, angry eyes on me. «Anita.»

«Dolph, this bad vamp wants me dead. Even unarmed you outmuscle me. I'd rather we had company for the talk.»

He pointed a finger at Requiem. «Not him.»

«Fine, but someone.»

He looked at Edward. «You seem to feel like I do about them.»

«They're not my favorite thing,» Edward said, and the good ol' boy was starting to fray around the edges.

«Fine, you stay.» He looked at Olaf and the people in the hallway beyond. «Just the marshals.»

Edward said something low to Olaf, who nodded. He started to close the door.

Dolph said, «No, the vampire leaves, too.»

«His name's Requiem,» I said.

Requiem squeezed my hand and gave me one of his rare smiles. «I take no offense, my evening star; he hates what I am, many people do.» He raised my hand and gave it a kiss, then picked up his cloak from the floor and moved toward the door.

He stopped closer to the door and Edward, away from Dolph, but turned to the big man. «'Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful Death, Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme.»

«Are you threatening me?» Dolph asked, in a voice gone cold.

«Not you,» I said. «I don't think he was threatening you.»

«Then what did he mean by that?»

«He's quoting Keats. 'Ode to a Nightingale, I think,» I said.

Requiem looked back at me and nodded, making it almost a bow. He kept looking at me, and there was too much intensity in that gaze. I met it, but it took effort.

«I don't care what he's quoting, Anita. I want to know what he meant by it.»

«What it means,» I said, meeting Requiem's blue, blue gaze, «at a guess, is that he's half-wishing you'd pulled the trigger.»

Requiem bowed then, a full-out sweeping movement, using his cloak as part of the theatre of it. It was a lovely, graceful show of body, hair, and all of him. But it made my throat tight, and my stomach jump. My stomach didn't like that, and I winced.

Requiem put his cloak on, drawing the hood around his face. He gave me the full force of that handsome face, those eyes, and said, «'I saw pale kings and princes too, Pale warriors, death-pale were they all; They cried, 'La Belle Dame sans Merci Hath thee in thrall!»

Dolph looked at me then, then back at the vampire. Requiem glided out the door all black cloak and melancholy. Dolph looked back at me. «I don't think he likes you very much.»

«I don't think that's the problem,» I said.

«He wants to pick out curtains,» Edward said from where he was slouched beside the door. He only slouched when he was pretending to be Ted Forrester.

«Something like that,» I said.

«You fucking him?» Dolph asked.

I gave him the look the question deserved. «That is none of your damn business.»

«That's a yes,» he said, and his face was taking on that look, that disapproving look.

I glared at him, though frankly it's hard to glare in a hospital bed hooked up to tubes. It always makes you feel so vulnerable. Hard to be tough when you're feeling weak. «I said what I meant, Dolph.»

«You only get defensive when the answer's yes,» he said. The disapproving look was sliding into his angry look.

«My answer's always defensive when someone asks me if I'm fucking someone. Try asking if I'm dating him, or hell, even if he's my lover. Try being polite about it. It's still none of your business, but I might, might , answer the question if you weren't ugly about it.»

He took in a lot of air, which with his chest was a whole lot, and let it out very slowly. Olaf was taller, but Dolph was bigger, beefier, built like an old-style wrestler before they all went to heavy bodybuilding. He actually closed his eyes and took another breath. He let that out and nodded. «You're right. You are right.»

«Glad to hear it,» I said.

«Are you dating him?»

«I'm seeing him, yes.»

«What do you do on dates with a vampire?» It seemed to be a real question, or maybe he was just trying to make up for being pissy.

«Pretty much what you do on a date with any guy, except the hickeys are really spectacular.»

It took him a second, and then he stared at me. He tried to frown, then laughed and shook his head. «I hate that you date the monsters. I hate that you are fucking them. I think it compromises you, Anita. I think it makes you have to choose where your loyalties lie, and I don't think us mere humans always win the coin toss.»

I nodded and found that it didn't hurt my stomach to do it. Had I healed more in the little bit we'd been talking? «I'm sorry that's how you feel.»

«You aren't going to deny it?»

«I'm not going to react all angry and defensive. You're being reasonable about your feelings, so I'll be reasonable back. I don't shortchange the humans, Dolph. I do a lot to make sure that the citizens of our fair city stay upright and mobile, the living and the dead, the furry and the not-so-furry.»

«I hear you're still dating that junior high teacher, Richard Zeeman.»

«Yeah.» I said it carefully, trying not to act tense about it. To my knowledge the police didn't know Richard was a werewolf. Was his secret identity about to be revealed? I rubbed my hand over my stomach to give my eyes somewhere else to look and hoped that any tension in my body would be attributed to the wounds. Hoped.

«I asked you once if you were dating any humans, and you said no.»

I fought not to look too relaxed, or too tense. This was Richard's world I was playing with. «You probably asked during one of our many breakups. We're pretty on and off.»

«Why?»

«Why all the questions about my love life? We have a dangerous vampire out there to catch.»

«To kill,» he said.

I nodded. «To kill, so why all the questions about who I'm dating?»

«Why don't you want to answer questions about Mr. Zeeman?»

We were on dangerous ground. Dolph hated the monsters, all monsters. His son was engaged to a vampire, and she was trying to talk the son into joining her as undead. It had made Dolph's attitude toward the preternatural citizens go from cynical and dark to downright dangerous. Did he know about Richard, or suspect?

«Truthfully, Richard was who I thought I'd spend my life with, and the fact that we seem to be headed for the big breakup still hurts, okay?»

He gave me cop eyes, as if he were tasting the truth and weighing the lie. «What changed?»

I thought about how to answer that. The first time we'd broken up had been after I saw Richard eat someone. It had been a bad guy, but still, a girl's got to have standards. Or that's what I thought at the time. If I had it to do over again, would I have made a different choice? Maybe.

Dolph was beside the bed now. «Anita, what changed?»

«Me,» I said softly, «I changed. We broke up, and I started dating Jean-Claude. I went back and forth between them for a while, and finally Richard just couldn't take me not deciding. So he decided for us, for me. If I couldn't choose, he'd take away one of my choices.»